Fight Path: Like father before him, Adam Milstead a fighter by nature

Adam Milstead had been through his father’s death, a premature end to a college football career and a string of low-paying jobs when he found himself in a Pittsburgh-area apartment trying to get by.

“I was down to eating peanut butter out of a jar two weeks straight,” Milstead told MMAjunkie. “I couldn’t even afford Ramen noodles.

“I got some minimum-wage jobs, but it just delayed the inevitable. The car was repo-ed. The bank account was gone. The credit cards were maxed out. There was some last change in a cup, and that was it.”

From that place about eight years ago, Milstead rose to become a powerful heavyweight, and his stock has risen again. This past weekend, the 27-year-old scored a knockout of Nick Smiley just 58 seconds into their bout at “Pinnacle FC: Pittsburgh Challenge Series 8.” It was his fifth straight win and improved him to 5-1.

But his career has contained more twists than just six fights. After battling the perception that he should drop down to lower weight classes, Milstead balked at the conventional thinking and boosted himself up to heavyweight. He was smaller and quicker than some of his early opponents, but just as powerful.

Much of that power and strength came from his father, who helped the two scrap by in Maryland before his death following a battle with bladder cancer. The death shook Milstead, who went on to try a small-college football career that fizzled because of a knee injury and an inability to make the tuition payments.

But he found another career, which started when he spotted an ad in his mail for an MMA gym. He went in, began his training and found out that even someone who hadn’t been in a fight yet in his life could win.

He had been a fighter for years, after all, struggling to get by.

“I was at a point in my life (when training started) that I wasn’t doing anything, just wasting away,” he said. “That’s what it felt like. So I gave the guy a call.”

Close bond

Milstead grew up in Prince Frederick, Md., near the Chesapeake Bay. His parents split when he was 6, and he moved in with his father. It continued a strong relationship between them.

“He was my hero from the start,” Milstead said. “He was such a good guy. We were poor, but he always managed. It didn’t matter what he had to do, but we had a roof over our heads and something to eat.

“You could see the guy was strong, just with his actions. He would go without eating so I would eat, and then he would go work hard.”

His father was diagnosed with bladder cancer when Milstead was about 10, which started a long battle. Years later, after standout wrestling and football careers in high school, Milstead was preparing to head off to college and he and his father had plans to go fishing.

“I got out of bed, and I was excited,” he said. “I went to his room and was going to shake him awake, and he felt cold.”

After his father’s death, Milstead changed his plans and went to a small college near Pittsburgh to play football. The payments were very difficult, but he was successful on the field until he suffered a torn ACL.

While trying to heal, he was spending plenty of time also trying to work out how he could pay for his education. He had to leave school, so he got an apartment and struggled through several jobs and a difficult situation.

Then one day he got the mail.

Serving notice

After Milstead had finally settled into a job that helped him get back on his feet, he noticed an ad for an MMA gym one day on the back of a booklet. Even though he had never been in a fight, he called, and he started going to the gym.

After a few months, he tried his first fight. Because he had no striking experience, he spent much of the time using his wrestling skills, and he won a close decision.

“My coach told me he was proud of me and I had a bright future, I remember that moment to this day,” he said. “That’s what really got me thinking, it was an incredible moment for me.”

Milstead went on to take 12 amateur fights before making his pro debut in May 2011. But he made a mistake, he said, because he felt he could do so many more things with the pro rules. He tried a spinning back kick on his opponent but landed wrong and was knocked out by a right hook in the first round.

In the months before his next fight, Milstead stopped trying to cut weight to stay at a lower division and started putting on weight to move to heavyweight. He was at heavyweight for his second fight in April 2012.

“I was getting ready to fight this guy, the biggest guy I’ve fought,” he said. “I was scared. But as it went on I could tell I had the cardio to run circles around him. I had the strength and the cardio. I TKOd him in the second round and I felt great.

“I made an announcement on the mic. I told the heavyweights, ‘I’m in the division, and I’m coming for you.'”

After four consecutive wins, including this past weekend, that’s exactly what he’s been doing.

Catching up

Last week, Nathan Ng told us about building his MMA skills with a friend in a garage and going on to balance and budding acting and modeling career with his fighting. He successfully made his professional debut last week, topping Florian Garel with a first-round submission at ONE FC 18.

Award-winning newspaper reporter Kyle Nagel pens “Fight Path” each week. The column focuses on the circumstances that led fighters to a profession in MMA. Know a fighter with an interesting story? Email us at news [at] mmajunkie.com.

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